Hi!
I'm a new member of the "I never thought I'd be here" club.
Short background.... married almost 19 years, 2 kids (14 & 8). Had a very difficult year, many external events that wiped us both out emotionally. I have a medical issue that wiped me out physically. Thought we had a solid marriage (hahahahahha). We didn't have much available for each other emotionally but I did what I could to meet his emotional needs as well as literally asking what I could do for him, what he needed from me. The answer was always "It's work/$$$ stress, it's not you. We're ok"

And I believed him.

A week ago, he was in bed and I signed onto his email to look for something from his mom. Saw an email from online female friend (married w/ kids) of his where something in the preview line caught my attention. Opened it and watched my world fall apart.

I found many graphic sexual chats between the two. They had been friends for several years but from what I could see, things crossed the line sometime in the beginning of November. I woke the SOB up around 3am. He knew he was busted. He admitted a lot of details but only to the extent that he thought I already knew about. Over the next few hours I dragged out a few more details.

He said it was only talk, never anything physical. Oh, but he went to go see her. Once. But it was at her job (an hour away) on her lunch break so it was only talk. Except I found out a few days later it actually was on her lunch for an hour and a half making out in her car in a torrential downpour (quite private & cozy)... Eventually I got him to show me a private blog they had set up where they wrote long romantic letters & stories back & forth to each other. Frankly that hurt a lot more than the graphic sex talk because he has *never* been able to express his emotions like that with me. I truly believed he didn't have it in him. There are lots of holes because he had been smart enough to delete many of the chats, he just saved the really juicy ones to savor.

I told him I needed to be alone and sent him upstairs (after yanking the wireless card from his laptop). At 7am I went through his cell and called the OW. She was surprised but tried to convince me I was being unreasonable. That it was just talk, never physical. I told her to forget my husband existed. She said she'd stop talking to him "that way" but she'd always be his friend. I told her she really needed to find another friend... The next day OWH called me, seems he was suspicious about the early morning call, saw the caller id didn't match with who she said was on the phone. He confronted her & she fessed up. That's how I found out about their meeting wasn't just talk, from him, not WH.

Anyway, he was stunned that I called her. He was immediately remorseful, swears he loves me and wants to stay married. He agreed to NC. He sat down with me watching and sent a curt email saying it was over and he wanted NC. He agreed to transparency in emails/texts etc. He deleted her info from his phone, he deleted anything on his computer. He did all the things he should but he couldn't explain why he allowed this to happen. I told him the only way we had a chance was if he was completely, 100% honest. That I needed all the details. He swore he would be.

So it's a week later. He's still being remorseful husband. I'm doing my best to do plan A. I've gotten a few more details out of him that don't change the overall picture but freak me out because he doesn't get when I say I need to know everything, it means EVERYTHING. I've begged him to tell me what ways I screwed things up bad enough that he had to do this. He says it wasn't me, it was just the excitement of something new. I'm still getting a lot of "I don't know" "I wasn't thinking" "I didn't expect" in response to my questions. I'm trying to be so careful to leave the door open for him to talk to me. To actively listen w/ out jumping on what he's saying.

It hurts that he could be so eloquent with her but refuses to be with me even when our world hangs on it. Last night I sent him the "why I need to know" letter (forget the person who wrote it) and we did talk more after that but I still don't feel like I know more now than I did before. I still don't know what he was thinking when he got in his car to meet her. I still don't know why my asking him what was wrong wasn't a signal for him to say "Hey, you know..it really bothers me that you (fill in the blank)" I'm angry that he didn't even give me a chance to do better.

And there ya go, my sad tale of woe
Lexi

Welcome to MB. Sounds like you are doing everything right. This stuff is so hurtful, and it will take a long time for things to get back to normal. However, keep asking all your questions until you are satisfied you have the whole story.

When does he have the time to write all of this stuff?

Lexi,

I am sorry you find yourself in this situation. There is plenty of good advice here and it looks like you have been reading and doing all the right things.

Even though I know there is no answer to why, it is something that still troubles me D+8months. In our case, there are lots of reasons we can point to in our heads, but there will never be one that satisfactorily answers the why in our hearts.

It appears as though your WH is remorseful. If so, you may find that more and more details will come out over time. As the letter says though, it is up to you how many details you need for yourself and it is up to him to provide them (as many as you need) to recover the marriage.

Best wishes.
AM

How did he have the time?
Oh that's a good one. He's a contractor and works out of the house rather than a regular office. Business has been very slow so he's been home during the day a lot. Because of the financial crunch, I recently went back to work after being a SAHM for quite a while so that gave him even more time to play.


That would be bad enough but he recently upped the anti. He started using his desk computer less and less and kept taking the lap top off to other parts of the house more & more. I did think this was odd, I did question him on it. He said it was so he could be in the same room as our younger son (who is a high maintenance kid) and still be able to play his games (face book games he said though it was really chatting w/ the OW) at the same time. The week before I found out, he was glued to that darn laptop even when DS wasn't home or asleep. I did tell him he was being weird but stupidly I didn't suspect a thing.

Per the cell phone bill, he also was talking & texting her constantly through the day. The texting really blows me away because he always said he couldn't stand texting, it was too hard. When I started my new job, I would send him little messages throughout the day on my breaks. I have an Iphone so it's easy for me to text. I told him not to worry about texting me back if it was just a little "hey, thinking of you!" message because I knew what a pain it was for him to answer.
Isn't that rich?????

We're still chugging along here but I have a question.
He's continuing to be remorseful husband. He's been pleasant to be around, I'm still plan-A-ing the best I can. We have email/phone transparency and to the best of my knowledge he has not called/texted/emailed her.

But..

He is still posting on the message board where they "met". He has several friends there (mostly men, it's kind of a techno geek site) Right after D-day, she had said she needed to take a break from there. Good. I had told him I wasn't comfortable with him posting there anyway but at the very least, if she started posting again I needed him to not reply in any way(which he agreed).

She had stayed away from the board for about a week and WH had only posted minimally. Yesterday she came back to posting full force. She hasn't directed any comments towards him, he has not responded to anything she said but still, their stuff is overlapping all over the place. The inside jokes are still flying around. Sure, they could legitimately be directed to the other members, not each other but it's driving me nuts.

I did a bad thing. I made up an account there and posted something rather snarky. I didn't directly expose them but it was a not-too veiled reference to him getting in trouble with someone there. Not proud of myself, trying not to stoop to LBs but there ya go, I did it.

I did fess up to WH. He wasn't angry but he wasn't happy about it either. He doesn't think they need to be exposed there (of course he doesn't...) I know at least one other person there knows what's going on though. I apologized for being juvenile and explained how unsettling it was to me. That I felt very insecure right now and seeing the two of them posting away merrily cut me to the core. He hugged me, apologized again for hurting me. And posted several times again today.

Am I out of line here? I want to tell him he has to stop. Moreso, I want *him* to realize it has to stop, that I can't get better if he keeps hurting me. And I want him to understand why this hurts me, hurts us.

Lexi

If they're posting on the same board, then contact is taking place. NC has been broken. Your WH basically needs to stop posting there - it's a simple as that. There are other techno-geek sites on the Internet. It's apparent that he still doesn't understand the damage that his A has caused - otherwise he would have stopped on his own.

Perhaps the vets can chime in on whether or not exposure on the that board might help or hurt the situation.

Thank you.
I knew it was bothering me but it's so hard to know what's the right thing to do.

I did bring it up again this morning after the kids were off to school. I stayed calm, I explained that even if he doesn't understand *why* his posting there hurts me, it's important that he know it does. I also explained I don't expect him to cut contact with everyone from there. He has gotten to be good friends with some of the guys, we've met them in person etc. WH is a shy guy who doesn't make friends easily and I genuinely don't have a problem with the other people there. He can keep in touch via email or facebook, that's fine.

He doesn't understand how it's contact if he's not talking to her directly. I explained that she still gets to know what's going on in his life and his hers. You can't forget about someone when they are still there. I tried explaining it by likening it to them both going to the same bar every night after work with a group of mutual friends. Even if they ignore each other, even if they sit at opposite ends of the bar... it's a small bar. They can still hear everything the other one is saying, they can still see each other and are constantly reminded of each other. I think that made sense to him. He was kind of mopey about it, said he'd stop posting to keep me happy. I ended the conversation by saying I didn't want him to do anything he would resent. It was his decision to post or not post but I couldn't pretend that posting didn't hurt me.

I know the OWH has found MB & ordered the books so this is flying in his face just as much as mine which almost makes me wonder if the two don't deserve each other

Any thoughts on this? Wednesday night he did agree to not post there anymore and wrote a short post saying he was leaving. He told me he truly understood it was his own fault he made that board and unsafe place to be and he was leaving because it was the right thing to do. Yay.

He has been in a major funk since then. Part seems to be depression for leaving a tight knit group. Part is probably a 2nd withdrawal from OW. And there is a part that feels strongly like he's trying to punish me in a passive aggressive way. Even though he said all the right things, his behavior belies his resentment. I did try to get him to talk about it yesterday. He said he was depressed about it (he's on meds already) but he knows it's his own fault.

Wed & Thurs night he also drank a lot, which is very out of character for him. We are only occasional drinkers with a 1-2 drink max. Usually beer or wine, almost never hard liquor in the house. Maybe a bottle or two for a recipe or guests. He drank half a big bottle of wine Wed night along with some rum (not sure how much) and bought another big bottle of wine last night which he drank half of by himself. He wasn't falling down drunk, he wasn't abusive but it was excessive for him and it was certainly affecting his mood in a negative way. I questioned him about it gently Wed night, he shrugged it off. I figured ok, bottle's empty, tomorrow's another day. When he came home with the new bottle and laid right into it, I got very concerned. He acted as if he had to drink because I took away his only other source of amusement.

My goal today is to be pretty polly sunshine. I'm going to go 24 hrs without initiating any relationship/mood talk. Of course if he initiates conversation (not likely) I'll follow his lead but I'm going to stay out of fixer mode and load up on love bank deposits. I have fresh bread rising in the bread machine & a nice beef burgundy in the crock pot. I figured that was more economical than pouring the remaining wine the drain :::: How can he complain about me making a nice meal for him? Plus if he plans on drinking again tonight, it will mean he'll have to make a special trip out to purchase more and that will be a deliberate act I can discuss with him (tomorrow)

If he doesn't respond in a positive manner, I think I want to expose to the message board crew. I can't help but think that he's thinking if he acts miserable enough, I'll say go ahead, start posting again. If I expose the two of them there, it may not be so enticing to either one of them.

Lexi